Technology acceptance model-based research on differences of enterprise resources planning systems use in India and the European Union

Abstract

The adoption of Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by organizations is crucial in today’s competitive globalized marketplace. The experience with ERP systems in numerous organizations over the last decade indicates that a successful implementation of ERP systems does not necessarily lead to a successful ERP usage. This paper addresses the scientific problem of differences in ERP acceptance and utilization in different cultural environments. The research question was whether and to what extend users’ extensive and explorative use of the ERP system differs in regions with different cultural backgrounds. Namely, organizations benefit from ERP systems only to the extent to which the users accept and utilize them. But the use of ERP systems at an advanced level is closely connected with the employees’ acceptance of these systems. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ERP systems in their maturity stage of use, when the employees already accepted ERP system, organizations need to understand the factors that impact user satisfaction and thus influence their extended use of the ERP system. Because of the socio-economic importance of India and the European Union (EU), we conducted a comparative research study into the similarities and differences of their use of ERP systems. From a theoretical point of view, the paper extends the original technology acceptance model (TAM), where two additional factors (work compatibility and extended use) were added. Additional external factors which can influence the users’ acceptance of ERP systems have been included into research, too. The main objective of this study is to find the key determinants that have an impact on user satisfaction and on the extended use in different cultural environments (i.e. the EU and India). We analysed and compared the data of 293 ERP users from 44 organizations in the EU and 577 ERP users from 13 organizations in India. Even though the use of ERP systems in India and the EU is at the same advanced level, there are differences which are connected to organizational cultures, presumed resulting from cultural differences of researched regions. Research data show some differences in the impacts on extended TAM model factors and some differences regarding the impacts of external factors researched.